Do you recall doing group assignments in school where the teacher would subdivide the class into smaller groups? Each group was supposed to work privately on their part of the assignment and then come together to present reports.
A video conference breakout room works in the same strategy but virtually. It provides the same benefits as in-person breakout rooms without bogging down video conferences with unnecessary distractions.
This guide will cover the essentials of video conference breakout rooms, what they are, and how to utilize virtual breakout sessions effectively.
What is a virtual breakout room?
A virtual breakout room is a video conference with virtual interactive breakout groups in which participants are divided into smaller video conferences and work independently. Each group operates for a designated amount of time before rejoining the larger group. Video conference participants then come together at the end of video conferences to report their video conference findings.
How to utilize virtual breakout sessions
Breakout sessions are a great way to engage your audience and provide them with an enhanced experience at virtual events. Here are tips on how to effectively utilize virtual breakout sessions:
Define the activity before you set a virtual breakout room
Before you plan video breakout sessions, think about what you want your video conference attendees to do. Is it a discussion? A presentation? Or an activity?
After defining the video breakout session's goal, then group video participants into video breakout rooms accordingly. Defining video breakout session goals will help video conference participants be more focused and productive.
Don't have too many video attendees in one virtual breakout room
Do not overload your video breakout rooms! Just like in a video conference, video breakout rooms need to be manageable.
If you have video breakout rooms with many video participants, divide them into smaller video breakout sessions. For instance, if a virtual video conference has 40 people in one video session, it's best to split the video breakout room into two sessions, totaling 20 video attendees per video session. This way, video participants in the video breakout rooms can interact better and are also more productive.
Make them short
Virtual breakout sessions should be short. Breakout rooms are meant to keep your audience engaged, so you have to do all you can to maintain that attention. One way of doing this is by short virtual breakout sessions so that the video participants stay focused and don't lose interest.
Participants won't mind waiting if they know it will be worth it. Keep virtual breakout sessions to under 20 minutes. That's enough time for participants to interact, discuss and offer their perspectives without feeling overwhelmed or exhausted.
Make virtual video breakout rooms interactive
Virtual video breakout rooms are great for helping video conference participants collaborate and effectively engage with each other. You can achieve interactive virtual video breakout rooms by having video participants take turns speaking and sharing their video conference perspectives.
This way, each video participant gets to share their ideas and feelings about the virtual video conference topics at hand while also providing their unique perspective. Keep video breakout sessions interactive by making sure that all participants get a chance to speak.
Provide a post-event survey
After the video conference is over, provide your participants with a video conference breakout room feedback survey so you can see what they liked and disliked about the video breakout sessions. This will help you improve video conference room breakout sessions for video participants in the future.
Conclusion
Virtual video breakout sessions are great video conference tools that video participants can utilize to enhance their video conferencing experience. The main thing is to make sure virtual video breakout rooms will help video participants engage and collaborate.
If you plan the video breakout room activities, goals, and logistics, then your video conference virtual breakout sessions are bound for success. With BlueJeans Breakout Sessions, you can create up to 75 working groups in just one touch. This is a great way for facilitating small group discussions within the context of an existing BlueJeans meeting without having to spin up additional sessions.
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